3-Cushion
The first four final players in the 4x100 One Carom Challenge are known and will battle it out for the first top prizes in the next two days. Dick Jaspers had an excellent third match day and finished with 113 caroms in 30 innings (average 3,766), followed by Nikos Polychronopoulos with 110 (3,586), Sameh Sidhom with 108 (3,600) and Lütfi Cenet with 82 (2,733). For two of the four finalists, Jaspers and Sidhom, the '13' run was a magical score. Nikos Polychronopoulos was, on a perfect way with 12 and an easy position to equal at least, missed due to a miscue.
With his highest score 113, Dick Jaspers has set a target for the players in the following sessions, like Torbjörn Blomdahl, Eddy Merckx, Dani Sánchez and other top guns who still come to the tables. The Dutchman owed his winning score to the final sprint after two days in which he scored 32 and 26 points in two 10 innings (3,200 and 2,600). His last appearance in the preliminary rounds exceeded these scores by flying colours. Jaspers had a modest start in the first five innings with runs of 3-4-3-3-6, but started a glorious final attack with 13-9-1-0-10 in the next five innings. That brought him to a daily record of 52: 5,200 on average in 10 innings.
Greek Polychronopoulos attacked in the very last inning to the other group win. Sameh Sidhom was still the best by a margin in the last minutes for the victory in Group B with 108 points (3,600), including an opening with 7 and a strong 13 run in the fourth inning. That made him almost the group winner, because his rival Polychronopoulos was at 98 one inning from his last. With his final sprint however, a run of 12, the Greek still managed to grab the group win. Dion Nelin lost his chances in the final part and finished 87, ahead of Tran Quyet Chien with an extremely poor score: 75.
There was a lot more tension for the second place in the group, in which Dick Jaspers was undisputedly the best. Entering the last phase, Anh Chien Nguyen from Vietnam and Lütfi Cenet from Turkey were at one point difference: starting the final, decisive inning, Anh Chien's score was 80, Lütfi's score 79. The climax was simultaneously on two images: the Vietnamese only scored from the break and then missed, the Turk passed him with 3 and finished at 82 against 81. That made him the second finalist in this group following Jaspers. The Spanish substitute Estela Cardoso couldn't score more than 2-runs from the break on the third day and finished in the background with 39 points (1,300).
The final score in the two groups:
Group A:
1 Dick Jaspers 113 points
2 Lütfi Cenet 82
3 Anh Chien Nguyen 81
4 Estela Cardoso 3 Nikos
Group B:
1 Nikos Polychronopoulos 110
2 Sameh Sidhom 108
3 Dion Nelin 87
4 Quyet Chien Tran 75.
Second round with four finalists, Thursday 14.00:
Dick Jaspers
Nikos Polychronopoulos
Sameh Sidhom
Lütfi Cenet.
Nikos Polychronopoulos was the other group winner after a strong final sprint